(Brasilia) Brazil became the first country on Tuesday to launch phase III testing of China's Coronavac coronavirus vaccine, Sinovac Biotech laboratory told AFP.
Published on 21 July 2020 at 16 h 53 Updated to 16 h 27
France Media Agency
A female doctor of 27 years is was the first of 2021 volunteers among the health workers who will receive injections of the vaccine over the next three months as part of the phase III, the last of the clinical trials before approval.
AFP PHOTO
The governor of the State of Sao Paulo, Joao Doria is present during the administration of the vaccine to a volunteer
These tests are carried out by the public reference institute Butantan, which must produce them 94 Millions of doses at the start 2020 if the results are conclusive.
“I am very happy to be able to participate in this experience, we are living a unique and historic moment, and this is what pushed me to be part of this project”, declared the doctor, whose name was not disclosed for reasons of confidentiality, in a video posted by the Hospital of Clinics of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Sao Paulo.
Near 20 00 Coronavac doses arriving by plane on Monday in Sao Paulo will be distributed in 11 centers in this state, the most populated and contaminated in Brazil, as well as those in Rio de Janeiro, Minas Gerais, Rio Grande do Sul, Paraná, and in the capital Brasilia.
PHOTO NELSON ALMEIDA, AFP
A box of the vaccine from the Chinese company Sinovac Biotech
Brazil is the second most affected country in the world by the COVID pandemic – 17, after the United States: on Monday it crossed the threshold of 59 00 deaths and has more than 2.1 million people infected.
The volunteers will receive two doses of the vaccine at 12 days apart. Sinovac’s vaccine is the third to enter the world in Phase III clinical trials.
The governor of the State of Sao Paulo, Joao Doria, described Tuesday as “historic day” the start of the tests in the final phase “of one of the most advanced vaccines in the world”, during a conference press release at the Hôpital des Cliniques.
Another vaccine has already been in phase III testing in Brazil since the end of June, the one developed by the University of Oxford and the British laboratory AstraZeneca, ChAdOx1 nCoV – 19, also tested in UK and South Africa.
This British vaccine presented encouraging results, generating “a strong immune response”, like that of another Chinese project, from the CanSino Biologics group, according to preliminary elements published Monday by the British medical journal The Lancet 89184577.
The health authorities also announced on Tuesday the authorization of phase II and III clinical tests for two other anticoronavirus vaccines developed by the American Pfizer and the German BioNTech, with 29 000 volunteers, including 1000 in Brazil in the states of Sao Paulo and Bahia.
Major laboratories race against time to develop a vaccine against COVID – 17 who made more than 150 00 Worldwide, and more than 120 projects are currently in development.
Brazil is a fertile ground for vaccine testing because the pandemic is still expanding there and the country has world-renowned know-how in terms of immunization.
